Taking to the main stage in NBC’s Studio 8H on Saturday night, comedian Dave Chappelle used his monologue as host of this week’s “Saturday Night Live” to talk about current events, but not to discuss anything related to the recent controversial anti-trans jokes. Refused. .
Chappelle generated outrage last year after the October release of “The Closer,” which featured the 49-year-old comedian’s damaging comments about the transgender community, prompting immediate backlash from Netflix staff. This included a staged walkout from transgender Netflix employees and allies after the streamer’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos defended Chappelle’s offensive jokes as artistic expression and supported his “creative freedom.”
Instead, Chappelle began the first stretch of his monologue by commenting on rapper Kanye West’s recent anti-Semitic comments, stating, “I wanted to read a statement that I had prepared: I leave all forms of antagonism to the Jewish community and stand with my friends in the Jewish community. I am And Kanye, that’s how you buy yourself some time. He then mocked Kanye’s anti-Semitic messages as well as Kyrie Irving’s recent anti-Semitic tweet scandal and apology.
Chappelle also cracked some jokes that got the audience gasping, “I’ve been to Hollywood and this is what I saw: It’s a lot of Jews, a lot of it. But that doesn’t mean anything. Ferguson, Missouri has a lot of black people, but that doesn’t mean we run the place.
West and Chappelle have crossed creative paths before, most notably in the early stages of West’s rap career, when the musician appeared as a musical guest on the Comedy Central series “Chappelle’s Show.” West also performed at an event Chappelle threw in New York in 2004, which was made into the documentary “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.”
This was Chappelle’s third time hosting “Saturday Night Live,” and all three performances came in the same week as a controversial national election. Series creator and showrunner Lorne Michaels seems to have staked out a position as “SNL’s” immediate post-election host for key moments in the country’s political history. After Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Chappelle hosted the show for the first time, with a stand-up monologue emphasizing his concerns about the country’s future but urging the audience to give Trump a chance to become president. Four years later, during the show’s COVID-affected season, Chappelle hosted for a second time following a presidential election that saw incumbent President Joe Biden oust Trump from the presidency.
As for this year’s election, he mocked Herschel Walker and the so-called “end of the Trump era.”
Later in the episode, there was a barbershop-themed sketch that discussed current events, including West, Walker, the election, as well as pop culture obsessions like “Yellowstone” and Netflix’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
In another sketch, classic “Chapelle’s Show” characters were revived for a “House of the Dragon” parody.
